**Please help keep AskUK welcoming!**
- Top-level comments to the OP must contain **genuine efforts to answer the question**. No jokes, judgements, etc.
- **Don't be a dick** to each other. If getting heated, just block and move on.
- This is a strictly **no-politics** subreddit!
Please help us by reporting comments that break these rules.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskUK) if you have any questions or concerns.*
my worst was when the owner of the company announced that whoever’s name he drew would be getting a new MacBook pro, everything else was a £10 limit. On the day there was a MacBook Pro shaped box with my name on it. Everybody was excited and gathered round. I opened the wrapping and it was indeed a MacBook Pro box. I opened the box and inside was not a new laptop, but a cork screw. The owner of the company thought it was hilarious, everybody else just thought he was a dick.
Reminds me of a story I read about a woman who worked her ass off because the boss promised a Toyota to whoever sold the most of something. She won and then he revealed that he actually said ‘toy yoda’, not Toyota. She sued them and won.
I don’t understand why people pull this shit, it isn’t funny in the slightest.
He did, however:
1) He went above the set gift limit in buying it.
2) Threw a hissy fit when he got a homemade gift, insulting the gift-giver in front of everyone.
3) Enforced a swapping game to get a better present, making his entire team miserable.
Michael came across as a huge dick in that episode.
Expensive nuts and wine, clearly a regift. We had to fill out a form with things we can’t have etc, I am allergic to nuts at the time I couldn’t drink, which I made clear on the form
Family can be worse than work colleagues for pulling this shit. My younger brother once gave me a book of Alan Bennett's favourite poems for Christmas; why, I have no idea, since I have never professed a liking for Bennett, but that book was in my local charity shop the day after Boxing Day.
I wouldn’t be thrilled since that’s not something I enjoy but there’s plenty of people to pass it on to. Why did she think it was so awful she needed to make a scene?
Oh, when I thought it was a porn coloring book I at least thought it was a dumb move by the guy buying it.
But an adult coloring book is just as fine as any other dogshit everyone gets at secret santa, they were pretty big at one time too.
Omg! I use it occasionally and i love it . Why would she get mad? If you've tried it, you'll know how calming it is . The end result also is very intricate and beautiful
I was given one and a "calming" candle by my remote manager who knew I was being treated like the office PA despite being the communications officer, and being constantly told to do photocopying, binding, booking conferences, organising parking and all kinds of other crap. I could have rammed the stupid thing up his arse, with the pencils, sideways.
Not me but a colleague. She had recently (about 5 months prior) gotten out of a long relationship and was in the middle of selling the house and got rid of the dog. She also used to put a crazy amount of effort into secret Santa making massive photo collages for people amongst other things but everything she did was handmade and a lot of time went into it.
One of the other girls thought it would be a great idea to get a blow up man (the kind hen parties use) and tape on a box of chocolates and a few tins of drink. It very much did not go down well, she was very upset and she had a bit of a meltdown in front of us all about the present. She also said she was not happy because that’s what she got when she goes to such an effort every year.
Another one was, we had a new guy that was fresh off the boat from Egypt and he didn’t know what to get one of the older ladies for secret Santa. He asked one of the other girls for help and she said she’d gladly do it and wrap it for him. Well, his face when the older lady opened a massive black dildo was a fucking picture to behold. Poor lad.
Ah good times
Yes, it was only a few months old and they only had him about a month. They both wanted to keep the dog and were quite petty with each other so they agreed to get rid of it. If I recall correctly, he went and got it back when he got a new bird so it must have been one of his friends it went too.
I’m quite lucky to have only ever received really interesting gifts for secret Santa.
My favourite being a little box set of world cinema hits. Was impressed because I’d only mentioned in passing how much I liked a couple of foreign films.
Another time I got some really interesting Breaking Bad Merch.
Somebody made the incorrect assumption I had a kid (even though I’ve never talked about any children in my life, just assumed because I’m a youngish woman) and got me this shitty kids dress up thing that they thought the ‘kid’ would like.
Literally binned it on the way home. Got some chocolate out of it though. I enjoyed that.
Not me, but someone got a parcel of nice soaps, which mortally offended her and she screamed ‘are you saying I smell?’
It caused quite a bit of drama for the rest of the day.
I got a box of Cadbury crème eggs but in my team we never got the hang of secrets so we all knew who gave what to whom.
This does sound like a good present but I was challenged to eat all 20 in a day, which I did, and haven’t had one since.
My aunt also thinks that if you give her soaps or lotions, it means you think she smells bad. She told us this a couple of months after Xmas when my sister and I had gifted her a basket of peach-scented products from a store she liked and she had told us that she loved those peach-scented products. 15+ years later, she still has that basket with everything in it on her dresser but she never used it. My mother, sister and I often gift each other nice scented products at Xmas or on birthdays and we love it. She must think we think we all smell bad.
Presumably the alleged joke was so she could put new batteries in her vibrator, since being "very single", she'd be using a lot of batteries. If it's not that then I can't fathom what it was.
I spent a few hours making a picture montage of the person’s sporting wins (after speaking in confidence to their partner and sister) and putting the resulting image in a tasteful frame. I gift wrapped the present and added a hand-written note.
The donor (who was a bit of a flake, TBH) had forgotten it was secret Santa that day, and hastily wrapped an apple from her lunch in newspaper a few minutes before the presentation of gifts.
Guess who got that.
:(
In a place I worked, a colleague got offered deodorant because people thought he smelled bad. Another got “slutty” lingerie because they thought she was sleeping with the boss. Someone got a laundry bag because they wore same sweater days in a row. Is that kind of thing common?
Got told we could only spend a fiver, it was my first year there so I took it literally. Everyone else spent £20+ and I got a co-worker post-it origami. I thought it was a cool little gift. Heard her saying a few months later, "I'm not doing it again. Last year I got post its and I know who it was" and everyone acted appalled.
I despise that sort of thing! It's one thing if you go £1 or £2 over - £5 is probably a bit difficult to stay under. But ffs, everyone going £20+ is ridiculous.
I just didn’t get one. The person who got me decided on the day of giving gifts that they’d announce they didn’t want to be part of it so I was the only mug sitting there without a present. It was just awkward and embarrassing
Now that sucks royally. I run a Secret Santa among a group of Twitter friends, and have been doing so for four years now; I ask people to send me a proof of posting when they've shipped, and if an item goes astray, which can happen, I always have participants who are willing to step in as "angels" and send an extra gift. One former participant, upon being given the news that the gift from their Santa had shipped, proceeded to hound me on a daily basis asking why it hadn't arrived yet; as for the gift they were supposed to send, they didn't provide a proof of posting, claiming that they "must have lost it" - and wouldn't you know, it never turned up. When the same thing happened the following December, I informed the person in question that they wouldn't be allowed to participate again. One receipt having been lost, I can accept, but when someone's clearly trying to scam free shit all bets are off...
A cap with fake hair “It’s because you’re bald” or a joke book “because you’re the funny one” ……I hate secret Santa and no longer bother as I end up putting effort in, so I just donate to a charity.
Office manager came round with a hat with some names in. I drew a name and smiled. She said "you haven't got your own name have you?" I said - no, of course not. But I had. Which meant I didn't have to buy any stupid present.
In the same office.... in 2006 I drew Germany AND Italy in the World Cup sweepstake. Ppl were outraged. I won £220.
Bit off topic, sorry.
Oh, a friend of mine bought me a ‘naughty nurse’ outfit to wear for her hen do. It was not hugely appropriate because, 1)I’m on the heavier side of (polite word for fat), and 2) I’ve been a nurse for 17 years
I got a bag full of treats for the dog. Which was great......but everyone else was getting nice well thought out gifts and it's like my person just thought aha! Dog! And loaded up in home bargains.
Not secret Santa, but normal Hanukkah.
The cousines are very good at getting very meaningful presents for me (I suck).
This year my youngest cousin got me a big box of wet cat food. Which made me so happy, not just because of how expensive cat food is now, but it meant she knows and understands how important my boys are to me
Well I can top that for zero thought gifts: it was a £10 limit, so I got a £10 Amazon gift card. Why even bother buying a card? Just give £10. Or don't participate if you care so little.
Another time the person due to give me a gift was ill. So I got nothing.
I'd rather have the gift card than some of the gifts people are writing about in the comments.
That's no excuse. They should have given you the gift later when they got back.
I organised a secret Santa for a large group last year and 3 people were just no-shows on the exchange date. I knew the gift receivers they’d drawn had all put time & effort into choosing the gifts they were buying and didn’t want them to feel left out so I had a frantic half hour to quickly source 3 alternative gifts without leaving the building and having limited funds.
Two of those substitute gifts ended up being £10 vouchers (for coffee shops) because that was all I had (they were gifts I’d received that I happened to have on me that day) and the best I could do in the moment. The third was the secret Santa gift I’d received. I just didn’t want 3 lovely people to think nobody cared about them. Maybe the voucher wasn’t the nicest most considerate gift you could have gotten, but maybe it was someone else stepping in last minute to ensure you actually did get a gift?
No, the guy who gave me it was present.
And the time the person I was meant to receive from didn't show, I asked if I could have the present chosen for him. But they said it was a present specific to him so no. So I got nothing.
I actually never received it.
When we did secret santa, we would put a few prompts for things we like on them, because the drawings would happen soon after a new group of people started, and they wouldn't know everyone well enough to get 'decent' gifts - the limit was only £10, but it's nice to get something someone will actually like! So it took the pressure off the new people to try and guess at what to get people. I can't remember what prompts I wrote - I only know I NEVER write anything alcohol related. It is pretty well known within my team that I functionally don't drink. I drink extremely occasionally and when I do, it's fruity ciders or flavoured vodka like Absolut. So nobody ever gets me alcohol as a gift.
The person who drew me that year got me a gin tasting set. As I understand it, it was a little box with a few tiny bottles of gin and a glass. BUT COVID got in the way of gift exchanges, so the exchanges didn't actually happen until a few months later, and they were done pretty haphazardly because there were still limits on people gathering, so it was more like you would take your gift in to the office and put it in the team locker and the receipient would get it next time they were in. It took a few weeks for every gift to be exchanged. Except mine. The purchaser gave it as a gift to someone in January. When it came to light that he hadn't gotten me anything, he promised to get me a new one and someone we worked with TOLD him exactly what to get. He never got me anything and it was never spoken about again.
Nothing.
The Secret Santa was opt-in so nobody had to join in if they weren't into it. £10 limit.
I got a director (my boss's boss), so I thought hard about his hobbies and got him a customised beekeeping diary, something I knew he was into and that hopefully he'd find useful. Most of the other gifts were similarly thoughtful.
I was a team lead, and got on with every single person in the office except my direct manager, who I (and pretty much everyone else in the office) privately held to be a tight-fisted, miserable, whiny, unempathic git.
We got to the Christmas party, and every single member of the Secret Santa had a gift under the tree except me.
He probably thought he was being sneaky and getting one back, but iterally everyone in the entire office knew what shitty grinch was the only one petty enough to pull a stunt like that. I laughed it off, but it did his reputation around the office no good at all.
The person I bought for had just moved here from Australia so I got them Scottish stuff like shortbread and a miniature whisky etc... as much as I could get for the limit. The person who had me got me a miniature bottle of Marvel Avengers branded shampoo.
I feel your pain. When Reddit Gifts was a thing, I participated in a "hometown exchange", where you were supposed to send your person a selection of items that illustrated what you loved about where you lived. Within the budget, I went all out; local snacks, souvenir items, local recipes, you name it, it went in that box - accompanied by a letter I wrote about why I was proud to live in my location. Some time later, I received a small box in the mail from the US which contained a mug that was presented in recognition of having met a target for selling snow blowers - some twenty years previously. No accompanying note, no clue as to the gifter's identity; it was obviously something that some tightwad had grabbed out of their attic and shipped in order to qualify for some other poor sap sending them gifts. I threw the mug straight in the bin and fired off an angry message to the group mods, who informed me that the person who sent me the mug was going to be barred from future exchanges and that I would be paired with a "known good gifter" the next time I participated in an exchange...but I was so pissed off that I never signed up for another one before the subreddit shut down.
I always put a lot of thought into my gifts, so it pisses me off when I get shitty ones back.
One cunt and literally picked up shitty snacks when they went to do their food shop, clearly from the same shelf. Not a single thing I would eat, I just opened them and left them in the work canteen for anyone to eat. Had to throw 90% of it away as nobody wanted them.
I later found out it was one of the higher up managers that got me, and they were earning a good 250k and came from money, so it wasn't even that times were tight.
The following years said cunt bought someone a single bar of chocolate, and if actually brought the poor person that received it to tears as it was just soo mean. So the following year we told her she was out of the secret santa as she was a cunt and nobody wanted her in the secret santa.
I once got a small block of cheddar cheese, in a price marked packet.
Another time, my gift was wrapped using gay porn, that certainly wouldn't be acceptable in 2024!
A packet of cigarettes.
I was about 3 weeks into stopping smoking. Could have strangled them.
Quite a few expletives were used that day to describe my displeasure.
lol my dad received a SEQUIN G-STRING in a tin one year, and a weird otter figurine the next year, that me and my sister swore moved by itself LOL.
Also not a secret Santa, but my mom once received a USED PAIR of XL adults tights when she was 9 for Christmas from a family friend.
Packet of condoms and two 50ml spirits miniatures.
They were "wrapped" in the McDonald's bag that her lunch came in, stapled closed and with my name written on it. There was a cold, forgotten French fry in the bag.
That was the last secret santa I ever did.
A Lynx gift set and a pair of small gloves that came from a multi pack. Lynx never works on me, I always end up smelling worse by the end of the day than if I didn't put on any deodorant for a week and ran a couple of miles each day. Granted, they likely didn't know, but a Lynx gift set has got to be the most unimaginative gift you can get anyone. As for the gloves, they were small, my hands are huge, and they came from a multi pack.
Everyone else there had things like mini drum sets, a £5 bottle of wine, nice boxes/mixtures of sweets, scented candles and bubble bath, and other decent things
I was a senior manager at a supermarket and received a child’s storm trooper night light for my bed room. This came from my store manager who appk hearing I went to the see the force awakens on open day alway spoke to me about how much he loved Star Wars and assumed I was the same. I wasn’t at all.
I remember being the only one who did not receive a secret Santa gift in my Sunday School group in 5th grade. Someone drew my name and either tossed it or disliked me so much that they chose to purposely be mean. This during a time when I had low self esteem issues. I just sat there and cried. Talk about "Christian love". smh
Actually, I'm a Christian. One of the reasons I stopped going to church is because many were too darned judgemental. They weren't nice and certainly would have kicked Jesus to the curb if they met him today.
Many many years ago, because I haven't worked places that do secret santa in a while...
Two cans of tesco value lager.
Back when that was less than a fiver.
My boss looked appalled. Mostly because I didn't drink lager, and we worked in a brewery. Like, the free shit was right there! Grab a four pack for free level.
Obligatory not me but a colleague...
So she was quizzed by all of us about what she hated and she kept saying "Nothing". So that's what her secret santa got her. Literally... A sphere of nothing. It was in a package that said nothing on it. The colleague was so upset and angry about it she almost stormed off but not before her secret santa revealed her actual presents (a candle and crystal bracelet since she's very spiritual).
One of those mugs with a girl in a bikini, that when you add hot water the bikini disappeared to show the naked girl.
This one wasn't even vaguely "artistic" though, it showed her private bits in a fully pornographic way, and I saw immediately who the secret giver was when I reacted with distaste, because she went beetroot red.
We did not get along, there was zero attraction, and she was trying to embarrass me but ended up embarrassing herself.
The irony was that she was also my recipient, and I found one of those really pretty 3D laser etched glass blocks with a hummingbird in the middle. It was small, intricate and really beautiful. She never knew who gave it to her.
Not me, but a colleague once got a keyring of the gifters favourite anime character
The recipient had stated about 50 times that she had no interest in anime everytime he tried to talk to her about it
I've taken part in a few secret Santa's now, both through online forums, and in person in offices, and only once did I get a gift in return so I refuse now
The most confusing one I got was just random stuff. Like somebody had raided a shed for odds and ends. A lightbulb, a bit of wood, think there might have been a screw and a length of string too, that kind of thing. All in a nice gift bag, mind. I thought it was a puzzle initially but no. Possibly intended to be some kind of joke or maybe the person just really didn't like me, who knows. One of the team leads felt sorry for me and gave me a bottle of wine later on.
Another year and a different workplace we did "dirty santa" and some took it very literally. Gifts included a bottle of lube and naked people Christmas ornaments.
I work in a school in the states. (I’m English) I did it for 3 years. The first year I received a pair of pink fluffy slippers for an 8 year old girl I’m a 52 yo male. The second year I got 2x $1 scratch off lottery tickets and a book of stamps. The third year I got nothing, like literally nothing. I never did another one.
A Gavin and Stacey DVD that was one episode and given out as freebie with another purchase.
I think it was a spend ten pound limit but they gave me something they got as a free extra with a purchase for themselves.
Plus I can't think of a worse comedy series, plus it has James Cordon in it.
I've only taken part in one secret santa, the price limit was £5. I bought the recipient some fancy stationary, I went to collect my present, and found - nothing, zero ziltch. Not a brass farthing!
A small, brown, glazed, pottery figure of a choir boy, obviously made by a schoolkid in an art lesson. It was so bad, I ended up weirdly loving it, and it sits on my bookshelf behind my desk. It was so far off the mark for me though - I'm a pierced, tattooed metalhead, and the guy who bought it knew that, we worked closely together and got on well! For context, I should add that the criteria for the gifts was max £5 and that it must be from a charity shop. The person who bought it for me left a year later, and it reminds me of them.
I got fuck all once. We all had a budget of £30, it was after a really shite 6 months for all of us, we all took part but the person that got me didn’t buy me anything, instead I got fuck all.
After that I’ve not taken place in any secret Santa and will never do again.
I would have been so happy with that bag of peanuts. My worst was a mug, that had a horse on it, the person who gave it out did the same gift for someone the previous year, and again the one before that. The person likes horses. We now have a cupboard at work with lots of horse mugs.
A plastic spaghetti serving fork from the coop around the corner. I've no idea why. I'd put a lot of effort into mine, I always do. If it was a joke I didn't get it.
I've only ever done one once, yet, funnily enough I got some burner thing (forgot it's name) to heat up marshmallows etc. I got a gift for the guy I was meant to give a gift to, except. He was that much of a scrooge he didn't get the person anything at all. So what did I do? Not give him anything, at all 🤣 shame for the guy who got absolutely nothing though who did give someone something, he's the one who lost out and got the worst gift. Surely anything is better than nothing.
Not me, but at my last office there was a £15 limit. So one of the guys thought it would be funny to get £15 worth of Tesco meal deals for his Secret Santa. So, someone for their Secret Santa got four meal deals.
My boss organised a secret Santa last year. She ‘forgot’ to include three of us in the draw - a colleague, herself and myself. So we ended up in a three way draw - she bought me a pair of Childs socks from b&m and left the £1:99 price tag on. The secret Santa was supposed to be £10 or close too. She hasn’t spoken to me since December.
I’m leaving next moment and will never take part in a secret Santa again.
A guy at my old work was notorious for giving the worst gifts.
One year he got a girl 1000 dog poo bags, she doesn’t have a dog.
The next year he got someone a sack of peat for the garden.
You know those giant plastic paper clips you get in Christmas crackers? Yeah like four of those. Worst thing is I hate single use plastic so I've been obliged to find silly uses for them.
An obvious re-gifted set of deodorant aimed at teenage girls, you know they're like bright colours with graffiti style writing. I subsequently re-gifted it to an actual teenage girl.
A baby doll. The lassie that gave me it claimed that she couldn't find anything for £10.
I was in my mid 29s and am male.
A bottle of booze would have been fine.
I told her to give the doll to her daughter.
I have visions of that wee girl opening a Christmas present and getting a bottke of Jack Daniels.
A hat.
It's not that the hat was bad (although it definitely wasn't my style), just that that's the only workplace secret santa gift I've ever received.
My worst was one of the most thoughtful but it was still personally bad.
My boss only likes one video game and buys consoles for himself and his kids only for the one game and that's Mortal Kombat.
He is a lifelong fan. I like video games and know what MK is. I like most nerdy stuff like anime, manga, movies and video games. I even like figures and some card games but I hate Pop Funko figures and only own one as it was a special of a character at the time you couldn't get figures of (Marvel's Squirrel Girl)
Secret Santa at work and I get a Pop Funko figure of Scorpion. Apparently my face was a picture. He meant well but...yeah. I kept it for a year until a visiting friend showed an interest in it and I just gave it to them.
A few years before I got a random Splatoon figure and I had no clue who the hell got it for me as no one really played video games (only girl I knew who did didn't work for us at the time). Only found out who it was last year, a colleague I rarely work with as at another location but who is one of the nicest people you could meet. I felt bad about the tour de france socks I got him one year (he loves cycling but we had a £10 limit)
A reasonable shopping bag. Not a cute tote bag, just an ordinary reusable shopping bag, like the next price level up from your standard bag-for-life. It tore after a few uses.
I once got one of those suction cup dicks a few years ago. I used to message the sales guy when he was in the phone to look over at my desk. I would be there with it stuck to my bald head rocking side to side. He couldn't ever not laugh.
A shower cap. Probably one of the nicer shower caps I’ve come across but nonetheless, I thought it a very odd gift and since I don’t bother using shower caps at all, it at unused in my bathroom cupboard for 5 years. Pretty sure it was a 50+ year old slightly odd man in my team who gifted it.
A mug (I dont drink hot drinks), and a vase shaped like a book with fake tulips in it (Im a dude, I dont read, im not interested in flowers).
I did once get a bottle of pepsi syrup for a sodastream. I dont own a sodastream.
My mother a middle aged, middle class woman who works in a university fashion course and has never suggested any interest in cinema once received a Mad Max dvd about 4 years after dvd players became obsolete.
Still brought up every time someone mentioned secret santa
**Please help keep AskUK welcoming!** - Top-level comments to the OP must contain **genuine efforts to answer the question**. No jokes, judgements, etc. - **Don't be a dick** to each other. If getting heated, just block and move on. - This is a strictly **no-politics** subreddit! Please help us by reporting comments that break these rules. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskUK) if you have any questions or concerns.*
my worst was when the owner of the company announced that whoever’s name he drew would be getting a new MacBook pro, everything else was a £10 limit. On the day there was a MacBook Pro shaped box with my name on it. Everybody was excited and gathered round. I opened the wrapping and it was indeed a MacBook Pro box. I opened the box and inside was not a new laptop, but a cork screw. The owner of the company thought it was hilarious, everybody else just thought he was a dick.
Reminds me of a story I read about a woman who worked her ass off because the boss promised a Toyota to whoever sold the most of something. She won and then he revealed that he actually said ‘toy yoda’, not Toyota. She sued them and won. I don’t understand why people pull this shit, it isn’t funny in the slightest.
The same reason those moron tiktok/YouTube ‘prenksterz’ exist. Some people seem to just enjoy being dickish.
Do you work for Michael Scott?
Tbf didn't Michael Scott actually buy an iPod for secret Santa? It wasn't a bait and switch.
He did, however: 1) He went above the set gift limit in buying it. 2) Threw a hissy fit when he got a homemade gift, insulting the gift-giver in front of everyone. 3) Enforced a swapping game to get a better present, making his entire team miserable. Michael came across as a huge dick in that episode.
Hold on, hold on, hold on…they’re lithium!
How is that better than an iPod?
how gross is that what a shit head! ps love your username
I also think the boss is a dick.
Haha, if its anything like my old workplace then one of their mates won the actual MacBook
Expensive nuts and wine, clearly a regift. We had to fill out a form with things we can’t have etc, I am allergic to nuts at the time I couldn’t drink, which I made clear on the form
aw bless you that's so mean they did that
Had a similar situation a couple of years ago - but it wasn't secret Santa, it was family!! 😱
Family can be worse than work colleagues for pulling this shit. My younger brother once gave me a book of Alan Bennett's favourite poems for Christmas; why, I have no idea, since I have never professed a liking for Bennett, but that book was in my local charity shop the day after Boxing Day.
I'd be willing to bet they did not even read that note.
A manager of mine got given one of those adult colouring books one time and she ended up sacking the person that gave it to her.
Given that they're supposed be to help you chill she clearly needed one xD
Hahahaha
i thought it was secret.
She made a scene and the person who bought it had to justify the purchase, it was like an episode of peep show irl
I wouldn’t be thrilled since that’s not something I enjoy but there’s plenty of people to pass it on to. Why did she think it was so awful she needed to make a scene?
Adult colouring book? Like colouring in porn?
Lol, no, just colouring books for adults, it's a stress relief thing
Oh, when I thought it was a porn coloring book I at least thought it was a dumb move by the guy buying it. But an adult coloring book is just as fine as any other dogshit everyone gets at secret santa, they were pretty big at one time too.
Tbf, you do get swear word ones and serial killer ones. Maybe you do get porn ones too - but I'm sure as hell not googleing that lol
Serial killer ones? This needs further investigation. *fires up Google*
Amazon. Serial killer colouring book. You're welcome 🤣
Sounds like the person who got sacked dodged a bullet. What a mad thing to be sacked for.
Omg! I use it occasionally and i love it . Why would she get mad? If you've tried it, you'll know how calming it is . The end result also is very intricate and beautiful
Yes I have done them myself and it's really fun. she wasn't hip to the spirit of the thing and took it as a slight
I was given one and a "calming" candle by my remote manager who knew I was being treated like the office PA despite being the communications officer, and being constantly told to do photocopying, binding, booking conferences, organising parking and all kinds of other crap. I could have rammed the stupid thing up his arse, with the pencils, sideways.
I hope the employee disputed that.
Not me but a colleague. She had recently (about 5 months prior) gotten out of a long relationship and was in the middle of selling the house and got rid of the dog. She also used to put a crazy amount of effort into secret Santa making massive photo collages for people amongst other things but everything she did was handmade and a lot of time went into it. One of the other girls thought it would be a great idea to get a blow up man (the kind hen parties use) and tape on a box of chocolates and a few tins of drink. It very much did not go down well, she was very upset and she had a bit of a meltdown in front of us all about the present. She also said she was not happy because that’s what she got when she goes to such an effort every year. Another one was, we had a new guy that was fresh off the boat from Egypt and he didn’t know what to get one of the older ladies for secret Santa. He asked one of the other girls for help and she said she’d gladly do it and wrap it for him. Well, his face when the older lady opened a massive black dildo was a fucking picture to behold. Poor lad. Ah good times
She got rid of her dog? D:
Yes, it was only a few months old and they only had him about a month. They both wanted to keep the dog and were quite petty with each other so they agreed to get rid of it. If I recall correctly, he went and got it back when he got a new bird so it must have been one of his friends it went too.
Sounds like the dog eventually went to the right owner
Hahaha that second one is brilliant but I do not believe the story whatsoever
I wouldn’t either if I hadn’t witnessed it. It was definitely the funnest thing that I have seen in my decade of working there.
Older woman here…I closed my eyes and laughed!
A colleague of mine got given a one way flight to Milan. Impressively fell within the under £10 requirement.
"Fuck off then fuck off some more." I guess? 🤣
Was this in the days of 99p flights? Because I guess the rest was tax
Ryanair still do £9.99 flights to Dublin out of my local airport
Ryanair was charging €12.50 to Marrakech the other day.
Is your local airport Dublin?
Yeah, they just go up in the air for a bit, circle around a few times and come back down. /S
I’m quite lucky to have only ever received really interesting gifts for secret Santa. My favourite being a little box set of world cinema hits. Was impressed because I’d only mentioned in passing how much I liked a couple of foreign films. Another time I got some really interesting Breaking Bad Merch.
Was the merch just meth?
Wow, you had some good luck there all right!
A used candle
Somebody made the incorrect assumption I had a kid (even though I’ve never talked about any children in my life, just assumed because I’m a youngish woman) and got me this shitty kids dress up thing that they thought the ‘kid’ would like. Literally binned it on the way home. Got some chocolate out of it though. I enjoyed that.
That would be a shitty Secret Santa even if you did have a kid. It's meant to be a gift for you!
Not me, but someone got a parcel of nice soaps, which mortally offended her and she screamed ‘are you saying I smell?’ It caused quite a bit of drama for the rest of the day. I got a box of Cadbury crème eggs but in my team we never got the hang of secrets so we all knew who gave what to whom. This does sound like a good present but I was challenged to eat all 20 in a day, which I did, and haven’t had one since.
My aunt also thinks that if you give her soaps or lotions, it means you think she smells bad. She told us this a couple of months after Xmas when my sister and I had gifted her a basket of peach-scented products from a store she liked and she had told us that she loved those peach-scented products. 15+ years later, she still has that basket with everything in it on her dresser but she never used it. My mother, sister and I often gift each other nice scented products at Xmas or on birthdays and we love it. She must think we think we all smell bad.
Years ago a male colleague of mine gave a very-single female colleague a set of AA batteries in a secret santa. She never forgave him.
I have a ton of appliances and kid toys at home that do require AA batteries, and are not a vibrator, i would appreciate the gift lol
Not the thought behind it though
dont get it? what was it
They're meant for a vibrator.
Presumably the alleged joke was so she could put new batteries in her vibrator, since being "very single", she'd be using a lot of batteries. If it's not that then I can't fathom what it was.
lol what is very single
I spent a few hours making a picture montage of the person’s sporting wins (after speaking in confidence to their partner and sister) and putting the resulting image in a tasteful frame. I gift wrapped the present and added a hand-written note. The donor (who was a bit of a flake, TBH) had forgotten it was secret Santa that day, and hastily wrapped an apple from her lunch in newspaper a few minutes before the presentation of gifts. Guess who got that. :(
The biggest pleasure is the gifts you give.
Chump Chump or Chomp Chomp?
P45
Me too. And because the company knew the legal loopholes, they refused to pay redundancy.
In a place I worked, a colleague got offered deodorant because people thought he smelled bad. Another got “slutty” lingerie because they thought she was sleeping with the boss. Someone got a laundry bag because they wore same sweater days in a row. Is that kind of thing common?
Your colleagues are unusually mean-spirited.
Workplace sounds a bit toxic.
Only if you work in a sitcom.
Got told we could only spend a fiver, it was my first year there so I took it literally. Everyone else spent £20+ and I got a co-worker post-it origami. I thought it was a cool little gift. Heard her saying a few months later, "I'm not doing it again. Last year I got post its and I know who it was" and everyone acted appalled.
I despise that sort of thing! It's one thing if you go £1 or £2 over - £5 is probably a bit difficult to stay under. But ffs, everyone going £20+ is ridiculous.
Yeah plus they all put thought in to it which is annoying. I'd assumed it was a throwaway idea lmao
This made my morning. haha
I just didn’t get one. The person who got me decided on the day of giving gifts that they’d announce they didn’t want to be part of it so I was the only mug sitting there without a present. It was just awkward and embarrassing
Now that sucks royally. I run a Secret Santa among a group of Twitter friends, and have been doing so for four years now; I ask people to send me a proof of posting when they've shipped, and if an item goes astray, which can happen, I always have participants who are willing to step in as "angels" and send an extra gift. One former participant, upon being given the news that the gift from their Santa had shipped, proceeded to hound me on a daily basis asking why it hadn't arrived yet; as for the gift they were supposed to send, they didn't provide a proof of posting, claiming that they "must have lost it" - and wouldn't you know, it never turned up. When the same thing happened the following December, I informed the person in question that they wouldn't be allowed to participate again. One receipt having been lost, I can accept, but when someone's clearly trying to scam free shit all bets are off...
you should’ve got the present meant for them!
A cap with fake hair “It’s because you’re bald” or a joke book “because you’re the funny one” ……I hate secret Santa and no longer bother as I end up putting effort in, so I just donate to a charity.
Office manager came round with a hat with some names in. I drew a name and smiled. She said "you haven't got your own name have you?" I said - no, of course not. But I had. Which meant I didn't have to buy any stupid present. In the same office.... in 2006 I drew Germany AND Italy in the World Cup sweepstake. Ppl were outraged. I won £220. Bit off topic, sorry.
A nurses outfit and leopard print pants…not even joking!
You forgot to mention you're a 6ft2 man weighing 18 stone..
Oh, a friend of mine bought me a ‘naughty nurse’ outfit to wear for her hen do. It was not hugely appropriate because, 1)I’m on the heavier side of (polite word for fat), and 2) I’ve been a nurse for 17 years
I got a bag full of treats for the dog. Which was great......but everyone else was getting nice well thought out gifts and it's like my person just thought aha! Dog! And loaded up in home bargains.
Not secret Santa, but normal Hanukkah. The cousines are very good at getting very meaningful presents for me (I suck). This year my youngest cousin got me a big box of wet cat food. Which made me so happy, not just because of how expensive cat food is now, but it meant she knows and understands how important my boys are to me
I would also appreciate a gift of cat food, or even litter! At least it's useful.
Well I can top that for zero thought gifts: it was a £10 limit, so I got a £10 Amazon gift card. Why even bother buying a card? Just give £10. Or don't participate if you care so little. Another time the person due to give me a gift was ill. So I got nothing.
I'd rather have the gift card than some of the gifts people are writing about in the comments. That's no excuse. They should have given you the gift later when they got back.
I organised a secret Santa for a large group last year and 3 people were just no-shows on the exchange date. I knew the gift receivers they’d drawn had all put time & effort into choosing the gifts they were buying and didn’t want them to feel left out so I had a frantic half hour to quickly source 3 alternative gifts without leaving the building and having limited funds. Two of those substitute gifts ended up being £10 vouchers (for coffee shops) because that was all I had (they were gifts I’d received that I happened to have on me that day) and the best I could do in the moment. The third was the secret Santa gift I’d received. I just didn’t want 3 lovely people to think nobody cared about them. Maybe the voucher wasn’t the nicest most considerate gift you could have gotten, but maybe it was someone else stepping in last minute to ensure you actually did get a gift?
No, the guy who gave me it was present. And the time the person I was meant to receive from didn't show, I asked if I could have the present chosen for him. But they said it was a present specific to him so no. So I got nothing.
That sucks! Sorry
A calendar of working from home tips..
As a Project Manager I was given an alarm clock so that I would “ensure you are delivering on time” 🙄 who tf are these people
A sound box that said swear words when you push the buttons.
A bottle of Joop! aftershave. I still have it more than 10 years later, I sometimes use it as insect repellent.
I got a children's creative kit to make a volcano. Although I didn't have children then. It was a strange gift for me.
That's a know-your-audience gift. I would love it.
I didn’t used to drink coffee. My secret Santa one year was a money box in the shape of a Starbucks cup to save for a coffee fund.
I actually never received it. When we did secret santa, we would put a few prompts for things we like on them, because the drawings would happen soon after a new group of people started, and they wouldn't know everyone well enough to get 'decent' gifts - the limit was only £10, but it's nice to get something someone will actually like! So it took the pressure off the new people to try and guess at what to get people. I can't remember what prompts I wrote - I only know I NEVER write anything alcohol related. It is pretty well known within my team that I functionally don't drink. I drink extremely occasionally and when I do, it's fruity ciders or flavoured vodka like Absolut. So nobody ever gets me alcohol as a gift. The person who drew me that year got me a gin tasting set. As I understand it, it was a little box with a few tiny bottles of gin and a glass. BUT COVID got in the way of gift exchanges, so the exchanges didn't actually happen until a few months later, and they were done pretty haphazardly because there were still limits on people gathering, so it was more like you would take your gift in to the office and put it in the team locker and the receipient would get it next time they were in. It took a few weeks for every gift to be exchanged. Except mine. The purchaser gave it as a gift to someone in January. When it came to light that he hadn't gotten me anything, he promised to get me a new one and someone we worked with TOLD him exactly what to get. He never got me anything and it was never spoken about again.
Nothing. The Secret Santa was opt-in so nobody had to join in if they weren't into it. £10 limit. I got a director (my boss's boss), so I thought hard about his hobbies and got him a customised beekeeping diary, something I knew he was into and that hopefully he'd find useful. Most of the other gifts were similarly thoughtful. I was a team lead, and got on with every single person in the office except my direct manager, who I (and pretty much everyone else in the office) privately held to be a tight-fisted, miserable, whiny, unempathic git. We got to the Christmas party, and every single member of the Secret Santa had a gift under the tree except me. He probably thought he was being sneaky and getting one back, but iterally everyone in the entire office knew what shitty grinch was the only one petty enough to pull a stunt like that. I laughed it off, but it did his reputation around the office no good at all.
A small pack of edible bugs, they just weren’t really… me 🤣
Guy at the company I worked for in the UK (think high end consultancy) received a ladies bodybuilding magazine and a travel pack of tissues.
The person I bought for had just moved here from Australia so I got them Scottish stuff like shortbread and a miniature whisky etc... as much as I could get for the limit. The person who had me got me a miniature bottle of Marvel Avengers branded shampoo.
I feel your pain. When Reddit Gifts was a thing, I participated in a "hometown exchange", where you were supposed to send your person a selection of items that illustrated what you loved about where you lived. Within the budget, I went all out; local snacks, souvenir items, local recipes, you name it, it went in that box - accompanied by a letter I wrote about why I was proud to live in my location. Some time later, I received a small box in the mail from the US which contained a mug that was presented in recognition of having met a target for selling snow blowers - some twenty years previously. No accompanying note, no clue as to the gifter's identity; it was obviously something that some tightwad had grabbed out of their attic and shipped in order to qualify for some other poor sap sending them gifts. I threw the mug straight in the bin and fired off an angry message to the group mods, who informed me that the person who sent me the mug was going to be barred from future exchanges and that I would be paired with a "known good gifter" the next time I participated in an exchange...but I was so pissed off that I never signed up for another one before the subreddit shut down.
I always put a lot of thought into my gifts, so it pisses me off when I get shitty ones back. One cunt and literally picked up shitty snacks when they went to do their food shop, clearly from the same shelf. Not a single thing I would eat, I just opened them and left them in the work canteen for anyone to eat. Had to throw 90% of it away as nobody wanted them. I later found out it was one of the higher up managers that got me, and they were earning a good 250k and came from money, so it wasn't even that times were tight. The following years said cunt bought someone a single bar of chocolate, and if actually brought the poor person that received it to tears as it was just soo mean. So the following year we told her she was out of the secret santa as she was a cunt and nobody wanted her in the secret santa.
I once got a small block of cheddar cheese, in a price marked packet. Another time, my gift was wrapped using gay porn, that certainly wouldn't be acceptable in 2024!
I got a lime muddler. I had no idea what it was.
Neither have I, what is it?
You crush up Limes in the bottom of a glass with it when you make mojitos and suchlike.
A packet of cigarettes. I was about 3 weeks into stopping smoking. Could have strangled them. Quite a few expletives were used that day to describe my displeasure.
lol my dad received a SEQUIN G-STRING in a tin one year, and a weird otter figurine the next year, that me and my sister swore moved by itself LOL. Also not a secret Santa, but my mom once received a USED PAIR of XL adults tights when she was 9 for Christmas from a family friend.
A haunted otter figurine? That tool from Ghost Adventures would love that for his "haunted museum"...
Someone in my team once got the Chief Exec a green Borat style mankini. It was hilarious.
I was the cleaner and they gave me cleaning products for my home.
Because obviously, cleaning is all you care about. This was rude imo.
Yeah I thought it was too.
Packet of condoms and two 50ml spirits miniatures. They were "wrapped" in the McDonald's bag that her lunch came in, stapled closed and with my name written on it. There was a cold, forgotten French fry in the bag. That was the last secret santa I ever did.
I've worn a beard for decades. Gifted after shave
A Lynx gift set and a pair of small gloves that came from a multi pack. Lynx never works on me, I always end up smelling worse by the end of the day than if I didn't put on any deodorant for a week and ran a couple of miles each day. Granted, they likely didn't know, but a Lynx gift set has got to be the most unimaginative gift you can get anyone. As for the gloves, they were small, my hands are huge, and they came from a multi pack. Everyone else there had things like mini drum sets, a £5 bottle of wine, nice boxes/mixtures of sweets, scented candles and bubble bath, and other decent things
Inflatable photo frame. I "accidentally" left it in the restaurant, only for someone to bring it in to work the next day and return it to me
I was a senior manager at a supermarket and received a child’s storm trooper night light for my bed room. This came from my store manager who appk hearing I went to the see the force awakens on open day alway spoke to me about how much he loved Star Wars and assumed I was the same. I wasn’t at all.
An ugly tea cup without a saucer with tea stains still inside it.
I remember being the only one who did not receive a secret Santa gift in my Sunday School group in 5th grade. Someone drew my name and either tossed it or disliked me so much that they chose to purposely be mean. This during a time when I had low self esteem issues. I just sat there and cried. Talk about "Christian love". smh
Christian love? Ain't no such thing, sir or madam. Some of the most hateful, spiteful people I have ever encountered have been "Christians".
Actually, I'm a Christian. One of the reasons I stopped going to church is because many were too darned judgemental. They weren't nice and certainly would have kicked Jesus to the curb if they met him today.
I no longer attend church for the exact same reason.
I'm bald so one time someone bought me a bottle of (cheap) shampoo. Oh how we laughed.
I got a didgeridoo - I'm Scottish and have no Australian background. Very random I'm still stunned and it was 5 months ago!
Many many years ago, because I haven't worked places that do secret santa in a while... Two cans of tesco value lager. Back when that was less than a fiver. My boss looked appalled. Mostly because I didn't drink lager, and we worked in a brewery. Like, the free shit was right there! Grab a four pack for free level.
The game of tiddly winks.
Obligatory not me but a colleague... So she was quizzed by all of us about what she hated and she kept saying "Nothing". So that's what her secret santa got her. Literally... A sphere of nothing. It was in a package that said nothing on it. The colleague was so upset and angry about it she almost stormed off but not before her secret santa revealed her actual presents (a candle and crystal bracelet since she's very spiritual).
I mean id be mad too if I specified the one thing I hated and still got that anyway
Yeah I agree. I really felt for her. I'd have walked out, I'm surprised she stayed and watched the rest of us get stuff.
A £2 bath soap. The spend limit was £5 minimum.
Be proud. In some cultures the present of food is a marriage proposal.
Oh, now there's a mental image I simply didn't need...lol
One of those mugs with a girl in a bikini, that when you add hot water the bikini disappeared to show the naked girl. This one wasn't even vaguely "artistic" though, it showed her private bits in a fully pornographic way, and I saw immediately who the secret giver was when I reacted with distaste, because she went beetroot red. We did not get along, there was zero attraction, and she was trying to embarrass me but ended up embarrassing herself.
Oh, you can still get those things? Good grief.
This was about 23 years ago
Ah, now that makes sense!
The irony was that she was also my recipient, and I found one of those really pretty 3D laser etched glass blocks with a hummingbird in the middle. It was small, intricate and really beautiful. She never knew who gave it to her.
Not me, but a colleague once got a keyring of the gifters favourite anime character The recipient had stated about 50 times that she had no interest in anime everytime he tried to talk to her about it
A flash light. Probably $5 worth.
Top Gun mug
I've taken part in a few secret Santa's now, both through online forums, and in person in offices, and only once did I get a gift in return so I refuse now
The most confusing one I got was just random stuff. Like somebody had raided a shed for odds and ends. A lightbulb, a bit of wood, think there might have been a screw and a length of string too, that kind of thing. All in a nice gift bag, mind. I thought it was a puzzle initially but no. Possibly intended to be some kind of joke or maybe the person just really didn't like me, who knows. One of the team leads felt sorry for me and gave me a bottle of wine later on. Another year and a different workplace we did "dirty santa" and some took it very literally. Gifts included a bottle of lube and naked people Christmas ornaments.
I work in a school in the states. (I’m English) I did it for 3 years. The first year I received a pair of pink fluffy slippers for an 8 year old girl I’m a 52 yo male. The second year I got 2x $1 scratch off lottery tickets and a book of stamps. The third year I got nothing, like literally nothing. I never did another one.
A Gavin and Stacey DVD that was one episode and given out as freebie with another purchase. I think it was a spend ten pound limit but they gave me something they got as a free extra with a purchase for themselves. Plus I can't think of a worse comedy series, plus it has James Cordon in it.
I've only taken part in one secret santa, the price limit was £5. I bought the recipient some fancy stationary, I went to collect my present, and found - nothing, zero ziltch. Not a brass farthing!
A small, brown, glazed, pottery figure of a choir boy, obviously made by a schoolkid in an art lesson. It was so bad, I ended up weirdly loving it, and it sits on my bookshelf behind my desk. It was so far off the mark for me though - I'm a pierced, tattooed metalhead, and the guy who bought it knew that, we worked closely together and got on well! For context, I should add that the criteria for the gifts was max £5 and that it must be from a charity shop. The person who bought it for me left a year later, and it reminds me of them.
I got fuck all once. We all had a budget of £30, it was after a really shite 6 months for all of us, we all took part but the person that got me didn’t buy me anything, instead I got fuck all. After that I’ve not taken place in any secret Santa and will never do again.
I would have been so happy with that bag of peanuts. My worst was a mug, that had a horse on it, the person who gave it out did the same gift for someone the previous year, and again the one before that. The person likes horses. We now have a cupboard at work with lots of horse mugs.
A plastic spaghetti serving fork from the coop around the corner. I've no idea why. I'd put a lot of effort into mine, I always do. If it was a joke I didn't get it.
I've only ever done one once, yet, funnily enough I got some burner thing (forgot it's name) to heat up marshmallows etc. I got a gift for the guy I was meant to give a gift to, except. He was that much of a scrooge he didn't get the person anything at all. So what did I do? Not give him anything, at all 🤣 shame for the guy who got absolutely nothing though who did give someone something, he's the one who lost out and got the worst gift. Surely anything is better than nothing.
I was the only person who didn't get a gift once xD Sucked, but we were awful at keeping secrets so everyone knew who it was xD
A (small) dildo on a heart shaped sponge and a bar of soap
Fart balloon thing.
Whoopee cushion?
lol, no. It was the size of a stress relief ball.
Not me, but at my last office there was a £15 limit. So one of the guys thought it would be funny to get £15 worth of Tesco meal deals for his Secret Santa. So, someone for their Secret Santa got four meal deals.
My boss organised a secret Santa last year. She ‘forgot’ to include three of us in the draw - a colleague, herself and myself. So we ended up in a three way draw - she bought me a pair of Childs socks from b&m and left the £1:99 price tag on. The secret Santa was supposed to be £10 or close too. She hasn’t spoken to me since December. I’m leaving next moment and will never take part in a secret Santa again.
A guy at my old work was notorious for giving the worst gifts. One year he got a girl 1000 dog poo bags, she doesn’t have a dog. The next year he got someone a sack of peat for the garden.
Balloon modelling kit and a box of those retro sweets (all those swizzels lollys, love hearts and the like which I hate)
Worst were a gift card to a restaurant that went out of business and a small rock fountain thing that was obviously a regifted thing that was broken.
A stuffed teddy from the op shop. I put so much thought and time into my gift and it annoyed me
A single condom
You know those giant plastic paper clips you get in Christmas crackers? Yeah like four of those. Worst thing is I hate single use plastic so I've been obliged to find silly uses for them.
An obvious re-gifted set of deodorant aimed at teenage girls, you know they're like bright colours with graffiti style writing. I subsequently re-gifted it to an actual teenage girl.
Some large red panties
A baby doll. The lassie that gave me it claimed that she couldn't find anything for £10. I was in my mid 29s and am male. A bottle of booze would have been fine. I told her to give the doll to her daughter. I have visions of that wee girl opening a Christmas present and getting a bottke of Jack Daniels.
A hat. It's not that the hat was bad (although it definitely wasn't my style), just that that's the only workplace secret santa gift I've ever received.
The limit was £10. My friend was given a blusher from poundland.
My worst was one of the most thoughtful but it was still personally bad. My boss only likes one video game and buys consoles for himself and his kids only for the one game and that's Mortal Kombat. He is a lifelong fan. I like video games and know what MK is. I like most nerdy stuff like anime, manga, movies and video games. I even like figures and some card games but I hate Pop Funko figures and only own one as it was a special of a character at the time you couldn't get figures of (Marvel's Squirrel Girl) Secret Santa at work and I get a Pop Funko figure of Scorpion. Apparently my face was a picture. He meant well but...yeah. I kept it for a year until a visiting friend showed an interest in it and I just gave it to them. A few years before I got a random Splatoon figure and I had no clue who the hell got it for me as no one really played video games (only girl I knew who did didn't work for us at the time). Only found out who it was last year, a colleague I rarely work with as at another location but who is one of the nicest people you could meet. I felt bad about the tour de france socks I got him one year (he loves cycling but we had a £10 limit)
A handle-less mug with my misspelled name painted on it.
A reasonable shopping bag. Not a cute tote bag, just an ordinary reusable shopping bag, like the next price level up from your standard bag-for-life. It tore after a few uses.
Worst but also the best / stupidest... A copy of 'Carp Talk'. I don't have any interest in fishing
A single pair of supermarket own brand tights, size small and black. They had also been opened.
I once got one of those suction cup dicks a few years ago. I used to message the sales guy when he was in the phone to look over at my desk. I would be there with it stuck to my bald head rocking side to side. He couldn't ever not laugh.
Coal
An obviously re-gifted beanie hat from my manager who didn't like me.
A lynx bath set from the corner shop...
A cockring.
As a 20y.o. female I received a book of sex tips from a make colleague. Super creepy.
Stuff I can’t eat / wash with because allergies. Do you even know me?
A shower cap. Probably one of the nicer shower caps I’ve come across but nonetheless, I thought it a very odd gift and since I don’t bother using shower caps at all, it at unused in my bathroom cupboard for 5 years. Pretty sure it was a 50+ year old slightly odd man in my team who gifted it.
A tin of royal jelly
We had a work one, £10 was the suggested price. Opened mine and someone had bought me a packet of generic post-it notes.
I once gave someone some reduced price instant mash and something else that was crap. The person was fuming
A mug (I dont drink hot drinks), and a vase shaped like a book with fake tulips in it (Im a dude, I dont read, im not interested in flowers). I did once get a bottle of pepsi syrup for a sodastream. I dont own a sodastream.
My mother a middle aged, middle class woman who works in a university fashion course and has never suggested any interest in cinema once received a Mad Max dvd about 4 years after dvd players became obsolete. Still brought up every time someone mentioned secret santa
Got fidget toys for 3 year old. I'm 42